Let Her Go
by Queequg471
Summary: Sometimes, it's just all too much. Post-ep for Swing. NEW PENNAME, FORMERLY FAITHTIMFAN16
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Still very much paying attention to The Meaning Of Family, but after seeing Swing, this idea popped into my head that Elliot really needed to get his selfishness shook out of his head. This is kind of a rewrite of the scene in the cribs between Elliot and Olivia. **

The doors closed with a loud bang behind Elliot Stabler, startling Fin and Munch, who were doing paperwork at their desks.

"Jesus, Stabler! Trying to kill us with a heart attack?" Munch jokingly inquired.

"Not in the mood right now, Munch!" Elliot called abruptly, already halfway up the stairs to the cribs.

He shoved the door open angrily and lay down on one of the beds that had become so familiar when he and Kathy were going through the divorce. God, Elliot thought. Were things really better now than they were then with him and Kathy? With the job? With Olivia? He had tried to be a good man, tried to do the right thing, and God was still kicking him in the ass. It seemed, he realized, that he was right back where he started, maybe worse. He had a daughter in jail because she refused to admit she had a mental illness, who he had helped put there, a wife who was so pissed at him that he honestly didn't know when – or if – she would forgive him, and he had jeopardized his job yet again. All-Pile-On-Elliot month, he thought wryly.

The door opened quietly and he heard the sound of soft footfalls enter the crib. He knew without looking up who it was.

"Kathy called?" he said, more of a statement then a question.

"Yeah" she confirmed softly.

"Guess I'm in the doghouse with her."

The bed next to him creaked as she sat, her silence making her viewpoint very clear.

"With you too?"

She sighed. She didn't want another battle, but lately that's what all their talks seemed to consist of.

"Elliot, we've been partners for eleven years. You know almost everything about me, even..." Olivia paused, no doubt scanning the same memories as Elliot in her head: Gitano, Joe Hollister, her mother, her longing for a child...

"Why is it you never told me about your mother?"

Elliot rolled onto his back.

"Never came up" he replied dismissively.

"El..."

"Please Liv, just...I can't deal with this right now. Not with you too. You have no idea what's going on, you have no idea what it feels like when it all piles down at once." Elliot should have stopped, he knew. He should have stopped when he saw the look on Olivia's face, ready to contradict him. But something came over him, something that made him need to vent, for once without punching anything, and before he knew it, the word vomit was spilling forward.

"God Liv, every time something goes wrong, you come up here expecting me to spill my soul to you, like you're the only person I have. Does it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, I don't want to talk about it? Just because you have nobody else to talk to doesn't mean I don't! Jesus, all I'm asking is for once, for you to just leave me be!"

The words were out of his mouth before Elliot realized it, and once he saw the stricken, tear filled look on Olivia's face, he would have given absolutely anything to take it back. But just as he jumped, ready to grovel for forgiveness, Olivia spoke in a soft, strained whisper.

"Fine."

"Oh god Liv, I'm so...oh, Jesus. Liv, please you gotta know – wait. 'Fine'?" Elliot froze mid-apology as he registered the word in his mind.

"Yes, Elliot, _fine._ If you so badly want me to leave you alone, if you hate that I care so much, then at the very least, I know I did the right thing asking Cragen for a new partner."

Olivia turned on her heel and started to run out of the cribs, never turning, never allowing him the satisfaction of seeing the tears running down her cheeks.

Elliot stood frozen for what seemed like hours. _Leaving? New partner? Had he finally done it? Had he finally hurled more shit at his partner then she could take? _

As soon as his feet allowed him to move, Elliot was running through the crib and down the stairs with only one thought on his mind: _I've gotta find her. I've gotta beg for forgiveness, apologize for being such an ass to her on more occasions than I can count, tell her how wonderful she is, tell her how much having her here helps..._

But as soon as Elliot ran through the squad room, Fin stepped firmly in his way.

"Hey, man I don't have time for this now, I gotta find Liv, gotta tell her..." Elliot began.

"No." Fin stated simply.

This stopped Elliot in his tracks. "_No?_" he repeated.

" You heard me, Stabler. This has gone far enough. I heard that she asked Cragen for a new partner, and I'm not going to let you stop that. I'm not going to let you continue to drag her life down, to make her carry your weight, your problems, when god knows she has enough of her own."

Elliot stopped struggling against Fin, as the full weight of his words took effect. His defences raised, Elliot stood on his heels, in his classic intimidating stance, ready for battle to defend his relationship when his partner.

But Fin was clearly prepared for battle too, albeit not a physical battle.

"She's so caring, so good..." Fin whispered. "She protects herself from people she knows are enemies, but you're an enemy too. She tries to be strong, god knows she is, but she still needs someone to lean on. Everyone does, including you, Stabler. And she's that person to you. It makes her happy that you can trust her enough with things that you hold most personal, and we're happy you have someone like that too. But it stops when you do what you've been doing."

Elliot bristled. "And what is that?"

" Dumping all of your problems on her to carry and fix herself, and not even acknowledging that she has issues of her own. It's like you've had so many problems yourself, you've stopped caring about her."

Elliot saw red at this. "You don't know what you're talking about, Fin. In the past month, one of my daughters' pictures was found on a kiddie porn site, another daughter was diagnosed as mentally ill and is now in jail, where I helped put her, and my marriage is going downhill fast. And Liv...I asked her...she's fine. She hasn't had near enough crap dumped on her as I have."

" She has. She's in therapy. Did she tell you that?" Elliot stopped short.

"Therapy?"

Fin nodded. "For what happened at Sealview. Jesus, Stabler, none of us deny that you have problems. We all know, and if you'd take a look around, you'd see that we're not here as your enemies. We help each other. But other people hurt too. Do you realize I was sent to Sealview to protect Liv? Do you think I sleep at night, knowing that I couldn't even do that? That that bastard almost inflicted the torture she's been fighting against all her life on her, and I barely got there in time? Do you think Cragen doesn't want to crawl inside a bottle again every time he reminds himself that he almost let one of his best detectives, the woman he considers his daughter, get raped while she was defenceless? Because we can't forget. None of us can. I can't go back and protect Liv from that son of a bitch, but I can protect her from getting pushed over the line by you one too many times. Let her go." Fin ended the last sentence of his speech in a whisper, then walked away and sat down.

Elliot's head was a mess of thoughts and emotions. Anger. Hurt. Fear. But most of all, the thought rang in his head that maybe Fin was right. Olivia deserved to be happy. He certainly hadn't been helping with that. Maybe it was best for her to start fresh. And maybe that was the best thing he could do for her.

Letting her go wouldn't be easy, Elliot knew. He guessed, on some level, he had always assumed she would be there. But Fin was right, it was not fair in any way to her, and it was time he thought about her for a change.

Elliot sighed heavily and made his way out of the squad room. Forgiveness would come first, that she deserved. His heart felt heavy with the decision, but he knew it was right. He had to let her go.

**A/N#2: So what did y'all think? I don't really like the ending, but I'm sick of Elliot putting Olivia through all his crap when she has enough to deal with. Please review, it would make me very happy!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: A few people had asked me to do another chapter of this with Olivia's point of view, I wasn't originally going to do it but my inability to leave well enough alone kicked in, plus I was bored on spare and in Law. So if this chapter sucks, that's my excuse lol. This is the last chapter, as I already have many more chapters of Meaning of Family to get done, plus the video.**

"Olivia, open up!" Elliot shouted, banging on Olivia's door, loud enough that he knew she heard it, but not so loud as would make the neighbours call the police. Although, now that Elliot thought about it, his job would make that a useless call.

"Elliot, when someone locks the door, makes you use your key to get into the building, and is refusing to let you in, most people would assume that means go away!" he heard the sarcastic response snipe from the other side of the door, and almost laughed. That was Liv. She would only snap at him when she was hurt, not ever the millions of times he had pissed her off.

"Liv, I can grovel for forgiveness outside the door, or I can do it inside. Inside would be easier for both of us, because then you can actually see me on my knees," he shot back.

He heard a heavy sigh from behind the door, followed by what sounded like a sob, but the sound was so foreign coming from Olivia that he couldn't be sure he heard it.

He banged again on the door. "Look Liv, I know how you must feel..." he began, his hand poised to knock again, his body pushing against the door. The door swung open so suddenly that he stumbled forward and had to lean against the frame for support. Olivia stood in the doorway, her face streaked with tears, a harsh, incredulous look crossing her features.

"You know how I feel?!" the disbelief was evident her voice, which was strong despite her teary appearance.

"Well...I didn't quite mean it like that, Liv...I just...I meant that..." Elliot stumbled badly, fumbling until he finally fell silent and looked meekly at Olivia.

The angry look still on her face, she grabbed him by the shirt collar and shoved him into her apartment. Elliot stumbled into the living room. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Olivia's bedding was not on her bed, but rather on her couch, rumpled as if she had been sleeping there for at least a few days, if not more. Before he could dwell on that, Elliot felt a hand on his shoulder, then Olivia whirled him around to face her. She was standing in her classic defensive pose, and Elliot steeled himself for a long fight. But suddenly Olivia sighed, the fight visibly draining from her.

"What do you want from me, Elliot?" Olivia asked.

"I...I came here to beg, plead, and even beseech you for your forgiveness, if necessary," Elliot replied, trying futilely to lighten the mood.

"Why?" Olivia whispered.

"_Why_?" Elliot repeated dumbly.

"Why do you want my forgiveness?"

"Well, I...I mean...I guess because I hurt you, Liv. I said some things to you when I was going through a rough time that I didn't mean, and I hurt your feeling. You don't deserve that, so I've come to beg your forgiveness."

"For me?" Olivia shook her head, a wry smile on her face. "No, this is not about me, Elliot. Whenever you do this, you coming here is never about me."

Elliot stared. This wasn't the way he thought this conversation would go at all. He stood contemplating how to respond, when Olivia spoke again.

"This is about you, Elliot. And it is _always_ about you. Crap piles up in your life, whether it's your fault or not, and you box it in. You keep it all inside you, piling more and more on, until you're like a bomb with a clock fixed to it, poised to go off at any second. So everybody treads on eggshells around you, hoping they're not the switch that will set you off. Inevitably, you shut yourself in somewhere, mostly in the cribs, just like today, and someone either sends me off to calm you down because I'm the only one who can do it, or I go up there on my own accord. Regardless of how I got there, it's me and you ready to go to battle. And it is _always _me that you explode on. That's what's happened here. It's all piled on, and you want my forgiveness to make yourself feel better, and I have given it to you a million times over to make your burden a little lighter, even though the gaping chasm this problem created is still there. But not tonight. "

Elliot hung his head in shame. He couldn't deny it. Olivia continued, her voice gaining more conviction, more strength, her tone becoming less gently, more angry and accusatory.

"I know that you know that this is the way it happens, Elliot. I suppose, in some way, I even blame myself for this. God knows I've enabled it. I set myself up to be yelled at, startled, and generally abused. I took too much of that as a child, so maybe I've told myself that this is the way all relationships work. But I can't do this anymore, Elliot. Calming you only lasts so long, then this whole thing repeats itself. "

The apartment was so silent that the duo could clearly hear the cars racing outside, through the busy Manhattan night.

"When did you stop caring about me, Elliot?" Olivia whispered, her voice dropping back down to silent and tear stained.

Elliot head snapped up at this.

"Liv, I have NEVER stopped caring about you!" he rasped desperately.

"No, Elliot maybe you haven't. I know you've always cared about me, before you've always shown it. But before, it was like you had a list of priorities, of the people most important to you. And if a person were high on that list, they would know it. You'd do anything to protect them, you'd support them through anything, and most of all, you'd make sure they know how much they mean to you, because we both know that life changes in a heartbeat, and you never know how long you'll have with that person. Kathy, the kids, the job, and even me – we were high on the list. We knew that. You made sure we knew that. And it felt – " Olivia paused here, to wipe away the flood of tears that had been coursing down her cheeks.

"- God, it felt so good to know that I meant that much to somebody. To know that I had someone that would care about me and protect me no matter what. You have no idea how good that feels when you've been alone your whole life."

Her eyes hardened, as if preparing her for the reality.

"But then, somewhere along the way, something changed. I don't know what happened exactly, but I guess the people higher up on the list's problems got bigger. And that affected you. It made your life harder. So many debts and obligations to so many people. Kathy, Eli, and now your mother and Kathleen. And then you didn't have the time or the energy to care about the other people. So I was the first to go."

Elliot felt tears pricking his eyelids now, but somehow felt unable to interrupt. God, coming here, he had been so sure he could reassure her how wonderful she was, how much she meant to him, but the things she was saying were too true to argue with. He felt a flash of disgust with himself. He had been treating Olivia shamefully. Fin and Olivia were so right. She deserved so much better than him.

"This goes way beyond the bounds of me being your best friend, Elliot. I don't even think I am your best friend anymore. Somewhere along the line, I became someone else to you. Now all I am is your emotional punching bag, and I can't do it anymore. This isn't like the last time I asked for a new partner. Then, I was scared and unsure of what was between you and me. This is different in so many ways. It can't continue like this. _I _can't continue like this."

By this time, they were both crying. Elliot, with tears silently tracking down his cheeks, and Olivia, who paused in between words to sob. They stood in silence for what felt like forever, until Elliot finally managed to choke out,

"I'm sorry," to which Olivia simply nodded, then the silence permeated once again.

"I think you should go." Olivia whispered, so softly Elliot almost didn't hear her.

And he wanted to fight it. He wanted to fight until they were _them _again. Until the heartbroken look that was tearing him up inside disappeared from her face. Until he could leave, feeling like he'd accomplished something. But that would be for all the wrong reasons, and Olivia was right. He couldn't keep doing this to her.

So he nodded and silently slipped out the door, with barely enough strength to go back to the now-silent cribs.

And that night in Manhattan, two souls cried for only themselves, knowing better than anyone how painful doing the right thing was.

**A/N: That angsty enough for y 'all? Not to be overconfident, but with the exception of the last sentence, I'm very proud of this chapter. PLEASE leave a review! **


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